Road Trip AP - part 10 (conclusion)

Session 8:

Dawn arrived and a lot of racers who spent the night around Team Alabammy's fire were wishing they'd drunk less and slept more during the night.  The morning also brought Chad with it, looking ten years older and mumbling that no-one should get involved with Ziggy's family issues because it could never be worth it.  Ziggy stayed behind to try and sort things out.  (The player moved to another city to start his new life as a barista.  We wish him good luck.)  He was shocked to hear about George's fall from grace, and late night return.

Fred was wandering the camp looking for Judith, who couldn't be reached by phone.  WTF didn't know anything.  (They'd last seen her reluctantly taking their insane friend away, but the players decided that Judith is some kind of action hero and has a personal teleporter so she clearly doesn't need their help.  If we were playing the full ruleset of Genius: the Transgression, they'd all take Obligation hits for that, but we weren't.  My players are terrible people.)

The other Geniuses were packing up their camps, and found themselves treated to the sight of Arthur stomping away, yelling that Howard and Samantha should just get their parents to buy them the race like they did everything else, and they could both just f--- off.  It seemed like Team Rocket had lost their main driver.

WTF received their car, and it needed plenty of work to get it raceworthy.  Eve attended to that, while Chad, Dmitri and Leroy put their efforts into installing Kevin the gearbox.  This was the final race and they were so far ahead on points that they could come in dead last and still win.  The only thing that could keep them from taking the race is if something prevented them from finishing altogether.  Every other team would now be targeting WTF.  The possible exception was Alabammy, who had failed to finish a previous race, which eliminated them from the win.  They were only competing to try and achieve a personal best.  Edith used her time to try and earn some planning dice in George's place. In the end they had to forget about go-faster paint and ziggyfuel and concentrate on Kevin.  They only had to finish, and Kevin seemed like an important tool for that effort.

The race got off to a subdued start, with all the drivers seeming to have their eyes on each other more than the road ahead.  Chad, Dmitri and Leroy hopped the train as usual.

Leroy went to buy snacks and Dmitri shut himself in a toilet so he could drink without being disturbed by a conductor.  Chad dozed in his seat.  It had been a long, sleepless night.  He woke up when someone dropped heavily into a seat opposite.  He was an older man that Chad hadn't met before, but his features marked him as a close blood relative of the Alabammy team's twins.  He introduced himself as their father Bobby-Earl.  He was here to make a proposal: Team Alabammy couldn't win the race any more, but they were still in it, and in a position to help out WTF if the WTFers would agree to stand aside for them in the next race, and maybe return a little help when it was needed.

Chad heard him out, but didn't think WTF needed the help, and wasn't comfortable with the idea of getting into a race-fixing arrangement.  He politely told Bobby-Earl thanks but no thanks.  Bobby-Earl seemed to take it in good humour and got up to leave, commenting that he hoped Chad didn't come to wish he'd decided differently.

Moments later there was the sound of an explosion and the train screeched to an emergency stop.  Looking out a window, Chad saw that the rail ahead was buckled and smoking.  There was a man who could be Bobby-Earl blasting away on what looked for all the world like a saddled cruise missile.

The train wasn't going anywhere, so Chad called an Uber.

In the race, Eve and Edith discovered Team Rocket's car in their rear view, which was a disappointment.  They'd hoped losing Arthur would put them out of the race.  They were shocked when Edith's phone told them "Hi girls" and the dash cam swivelled to look at them both.  It was George, driving Rocket's car.  Next moment, the WTF car's brakes activated, throwing them forward in their seats and dragging their speed down. 

Eve cracked the console open and started ripping out wires, hoping to break George's control over their car.  It worked, and Edith kicked it down into low gear to build up their speed again.  She activated Kevin as a precaution and they pulled away from the Rocket car.  George wasn't as good a driver as her, and without an Interdimensional Phasing Gearbox of his own, he couldn't ignore the road's bumps and dips the way she could.  He shrunk in their rear view until he couldn't be seen any more.

Then there was a thump and a bang and they realised that George's car takeover was at least partly a distraction.  Looking in the rear view again, Edith discovered they were leaving a trail of oil behind them.  Something was wrong with the engine.  Yelling at Edith to keep it steady and not stop, Eve climbed out the passenger side window onto the front of the car and released the bonnet so it came free and sailed away over the roof behind her.  Looking down into the engine bay, she saw a star-nosed mole in aviator goggles looking back up at her in surprise.  She grabbed it by the scruff and tossed it over the car as well.  Looking back, Edith saw it activate a tiny parachute and drift to a safe stop.

Eve was now looking at a mess of severed tubes and cords.  The mole had done a good job of sabotage.  Leaning halfway out of her window, she was able to use her ever-present duct tape and a couple of fanmail dice from the other players to repair them.  Edith was once again in control.

It was getting late and a couple of the players had to catch buses, so we couldn't play out the rest of the race (including Maggie bending the rules to breaking point by trying to burn away their tires with her raygun), but with this last success there was nothing to stop WTF from winning.  They came in midway through the pack, achieving victory and entrance into the Nine Vertex Devils Club for all, George excepted.